Agents of Light and Darkness

I stood back-to-back, watching and waiting. Alex muttered darkly to himself while trying to look in all directions at once. At least when he wasn't shooting dark glances at me that clearly said This is all your fault. Do Something. And you 'd better have a really good plan. As it happened, I did. But I wasn't going to tell him about it just yet Because he really wasn't going to like it.

Upstairs, the front door to the club blew in. There was the sound of great wings beating, followed by the tread of heavy feet. A blindingly bright light spilled out of the foyer but stopped abruptly at the top of the stairs leading down into the bar proper. A heavy tension built on the air, oppressive and threatening like a storm about to break, as the angels pressed against Strangefellow's ancient defenses. All of the windows shattered at once, vicious shards of glass flying through the air, only to fall just short of the pentacle's glowing lines. A blackness far darker than the night oozed through the windows, swallowed them up, then crept slowly across the walls.

'They're here,' said Suzie. 'Heaven and Hell.'

'And poor Humanity caught in the middle, just like always,' I said. I turned to Alex. 'And now, it's up to you. We need your ancestor, Alex. We need Merlin.'

'No,' he said. 'No way. I won't do it.'

'He's the only one powerful enough to make a stand against angels, Alex.'

'You don't know what you're asking, John. I can't do it.'

'That's your big plan?' said Suzie. 'Call up Merlin? What's he but another dead sorcerer who won't lie down?'

'According to some Arthurian legends, his full name was Merlin Satanspawn,' I said. 'Because his father was supposed to be the devil.'

'Just when you think things can't get any worse...' Suzie scowled unhappily. 'I can see a rock and a hard place moving into position around us. If you like, I could just shoot us all now. It might be less painful.'

'Relax, Suzie,' I said. 'I'm on the case. Alex...'

'Don't make me do this, John,' he said quietly. 'Please. You don't know what it's like, what it does to me. When I call him up, he manifests through me. He takes my place in the world. I have to cease to exist, so he can be real. It feels like dying.'

'I'm sorry, Alex,' I said. 'Really. But we don't have the time for me to be kind.'

I pushed my gift into his head, found the connection that still existed between Alex and his most ancient ancestor, and pushed it hard.

'Merlin Satanspawn; come forth!'

Alex cried out, in pain and shock and horror, and ran out of the pentacle before any of us could stop him. He got as far as the bar before the change hit him. The whole world seemed to shudder, as reality shifted and changed... and where Alex had been, suddenly someone new, or rather very old, came into the world. He sat in state upon a great iron throne, the heavy black metal carved and scored with crawling, unquiet runes. He was naked, his corpse-pale body decorated from throat to toes with curving Celtic and Druidic tattoos. Many were unpleasant and actually disturbing to look upon.

Between the ancient designs, his skin was blotchy and discolored and visibly decayed in places. He'd been dead a long time, and it showed. His hair was long and grey, falling past his shoulders in convoluted knots, and stiffened here and there with clay and woad. Upon his heavy brow he wore a crown of mistletoe. His face was heavy-boned and ugly, and two fires leapt and danced in the sockets where his eyes should have been. There was an ancient wound in the centre of his chest, where skin and muscle and bone had been torn apart, leaving a gaping hole. His heart was gone, torn out, long and long ago. He was Merlin, dead but not departed, powerful beyond hope or sanity. Merlin, sitting on his ancient throne and smiling horribly.

They say he has his father's eyes...

He only still existed through an awful act of will. Life and death and reality itself bowed down to his magics. Though there were those who said he was only still around because neither Heaven nor Hell would take him.

'Who disturbs me at this time?' Merlin's voice was deep and dark, and grated on the ear like fingernails dragged across the soul.

'I'm John Taylor,' I said, politely. 'I called you. Angels have come to the Nightside, from Above and Below, in search of the Unholy Grail. They threaten this place, and your current descendant.'

'Damn,' said Merlin. 'If it isn't one thing, it's another.'

A voice spoke from the top of the stairs; a choir of voices speaking in a harmony so perfect it was inhuman. 'We are the Will of the Most High. We are the soldiers of the shimmering plains, and the Courts of the Holy. Give us the mortal, for we have need of him.'

Another voice spoke, from out of the darkness that had enveloped the windows and was spreading slowly across the walls. Its harmonies were dissonant and disturbing, but still inhumanly perfect. 'We are the Will of the Morningstar. We are the soldiers of the Pit, and the Inferno. Do not stand in our way. The mortal is ours.'

'Typical angels,' said Merlin, sitting utterly at ease and unmoved on his iron throne. 'All bluff and bluster. Bullies, then and now. The Hereafter's attack dogs, only with less manners. Guard your tongues, all of you. I am the Son of the Morningstar, and I will not be spoken to in such a fashion. I could have been the Anti-Christ, but I declined the honor. I was determined to be free, from both Heaven and Hell. I gave birth to Camelot, and the song that never ends. I made a Golden Age for Mankind, an Age of Reason. And then the Holy Grail came to England's fair shores, and no-one could think of anything else. They all went riding off on their stupid quests, abandoning their duty to the people. And, of course, it all fell apart. What is Reason, in the face of dreams? I still miss Arthur. He was always the best of them. Arthur, my once and future King.'

'Did you really get to see the Holy Grail?' said Suzie, who would interrupt anybody. 'What was it like?'

Merlin's smile softened, just for a moment. 'It was ... wonderful. A thing of beauty, and of joy. Almost enough to be worth losing the world for. Almost beautiful enough... to shame me for the shallowness of my vision. Man cannot live by Reason alone.'

'And now the Unholy Grail's come here,' I said. 'I've been told it would be a really bad thing if either set of angels gets their hands on it. Judgement Day was mentioned, and not in a good way.'

'The somber chalice...' Merlin raised one rotting hand to the gaping hole in his chest. 'I suppose it was inevitable the ugly thing should turn up here. The Nightside was created to be the one place where neither Heaven nor Hell could intervene directly. A place apart, free from the tyrannies of fate and destiny. In the Nightside, even the Highest and the Lowest can only work through agents. Which is why the angels are so much weaker here.'

Suzie and I exchanged a glance. If these were angels in a weaker form... 'Excuse me, Sir Merlin,' I said, with all the politeness at my command, 'Did you just say the Nightside was created for a specific purpose? Who created it, and why?'

Merlin looked at me with his flame-filled eyes, and smiled unpleasantly. 'Ask your mother.'

Somehow, I'd known he was going to say that.

'If some of these angels are agents of Heaven,' said Suzie, in the manner of someone who had a problem bone, and was determined to worry at it until she got an answer that satisfied her, 'why have they been killing people, and turning them to salt, and blowing up perfectly good buildings?'

'We only punish the guilty,' said the chorused voice in the light. 'And so many here are guilty of something.'

Suzie looked at me. 'They have a point.'

'Of course,' said Merlin, 'here, all the angels are cut off from their Masters. Poor things, they're not used to having to think for themselves. Which is why they've made such a mess. Decision-making isn't really what you do best, is it, boys?'

'We are here for the Unholy Grail,' said the light.

'Do you dare stand against us?' said the dark.

'Why not?' said Merlin. 'It wouldn't be the first time, would it? Now back off, all of you, or I'll fry your pinfeathers.'

The light faded back a little, and the darkness stopped spreading, but the sense of surrounding presences was as strong as ever.

'Taylor,' Suzie said urgently. 'Tell me there was more to your plan than just this ...'

'Not even half of it,' I murmured. 'Hang in there.

Sir Merlin, with your leave I think I can sort out this whole mess in a way that will please... well, nobody